“That’s not it,” Wilde says.
“So what is it, then?”
Wilde takes a deep breath. “My great-grandfather gave us the world,” he says. “This was his gift to us. He made sure I would never have to work a day in my life, made sure my dad and his dad would have everything. He gave us the world.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Like it makes you sad.” I switch the pen to my other hand and wipe my palm on my skirt. There’s an intensity in Wilde’s eyes that I can’t put my finger on, a glare at some distant past. That’s what I want: whatever he’s thinking right then. I wonder if I should push him for more; I wonder if I should show him the shells; but I worry even more that I might frighten some wary truth away.
Wilde sets his wine down and stands up. He is frozen in place for a moment, like he’s locked in a fight-or-flight decision. He walks to a side table, opens a drawer, and pulls out a book. It looks like a Bible, and I wait for him to open it and quote scripture. I wonder if Ness has found God these past years, if that’s why he has withdrawn from the world. Perhaps he is seeking forgiveness for what he and his family have done to the earth.
But as he brings me the book, I can see that it’s a leather journal, worn soft. He hands it to me. The leather strap around the journal doesn’t match the cover; the original probably wore through and fell apart. I slip the strap off and open the notebook. Pages of neat writing. It’s almost calligraphic in its beauty, its timelessness. The pages feel on the verge of growing brittle.
“Part of the reason I asked you here was so you could read this,” Ness says. “It was my grandfather’s journal. His private thoughts. I don’t think he ever meant for anyone else to read it.”
My palms are sweating. Source material on the Wilde family is impossibly hard to find. It all comes secondhand or through interviews. As I flip the pages, a poem stands out for its short stanzas and the way it’s centered on the page. I scan the first few lines:
The sea whispers and sighs
her last breaths upon the beach.
She is dying, and all I want
is to end her suffering.
“I need you to sign this before you read any more,” Ness says.
I glance up. Ness has placed a thick stapled document and a pen on the coffee table.
“What is this?” I ask.
“A non-disclosure agreement. If you ever run a word of what’s in that book, my lawyers assure me that I’ll own not only you, but the Times as well.”
“Is that so?”
He nods. “That’s so. Of course, you can choose not to read it if you don’t want to know the truth.”
“If I can’t write about what’s in here, then why show it to me?”
Ness frowns. It’s the most serious I’ve ever seen him, in person or otherwise. “Because if you read what my grandfather wrote,” he says, “you won’t write anything about him. Ever.”
7
I have to admit that I’m intrigued. Intrigued enough to sign the document. This is not quite why I came here, but as a reporter I know not to turn down opportunities that arise unexpectedly. Besides, I like letting him know that my mind is open, that I’m only interested in the truth, before I grill him about the shells. And the journal is simply too good to pass up.
As I leaf through it, I begin to suspect that Ness didn’t ask me here to interview him; he brought me here to commune with a dead man. He leaves me alone with the journal and the amazing view, as if this has been his plan all along. He tidies up in the kitchen, disappears for long stretches, passes through now and then like an intermittent wind. My wine seems to fill itself once or twice. The sky reddens then darkens. Occasional ships float by in the distance like stars on the move, while the actual stars hang like diamonds in the sky. And to the south, the horizon glows every ten seconds or so as a nearby lighthouse throws its beam in great orbits of the sky.
But all of this is backdrop to the notebook; they are the things I see when I glance up to digest what I’ve just read. I scan entries spaced months and even years apart. Angry screeds at the beginning—dating back eighty years—give way to confessions and measured doses of guilt later in life. One note in particular catches my eye. Halfway into the day’s entry, written over sixty years ago:
How many children reject their parents’ dreams, and how many are diametrically opposed? And of the latter, how many of those children forewent riches from questionable sources? How many cast off to live adrift, when the answer to reparations lay in their inheritances?
My father’s allowance is the only power he has over me. To reject this is to reject him and to stand on my convictions. But my father’s allowance is the only power I have over the world he harms. To cast myself adrift is to leave the world to drown. In this way, my convictions become the ultimate not in sacrifice but in selfishness.